Saturday, February 13, 2016

Sanders: Covering up class divisions

....Sanders also focuses on income inequality, as well as campaign finance rules that he says perpetuate an "oligarchy" in government. He calls for raising taxes on corporations and the super-rich to "end a rigged economy, create an economy that works for all."

This echoes the "Occupy Wall Street" protests of 2011-12, which popularized the catchphrase of a wealthy "1 percent" versus "the 99 percent." The Occupy movement, and Sanders, obscure the fact that the capitalist crisis and growing attacks on workers are the product not of opposing percentiles or well-endowed campaign "Super PACs." Instead, they register the reality of irreconcilable class interests under capitalism and state power held by a handful of ruling-class families whose entrenched power, property and privilege are defended by the armed forces, cops and courts.

The Sanders campaign, like the Occupy movement, peddles the false notion of a classless "we" encompassing nearly all Americans (99 percent or more of us, in fact), who can be brought together if only capitalism and bourgeois election campaigns can be made more fair....